Matsumura Ryouko is a popular novelist in her 50s who has just found out that she has Alzheimer’s disease. In order to gain some fulfilment in her life, she decides to be a guest lecturer at a university. Through one of her students, she meets a South Korean exchange student, So Chan Hae. As they become closer, they fall in love.
Left alone on a trip to Hong Kong, Tomoko, a sales woman from Japan finds herself the victim of a purse-snatching. The police arrest the man she points out, but it turns out to be the wrong person: a young Korean man named Ji Hoon. Despite his anger and humiliation, he takes her out to dinner since she has lost all her money, and in return, she agrees to model for his amateur film. What follows is a magical and romantic two days. Upon returning to their respective countries, Tomoko must return to her nine-to-five job and Ji Hoon must resume studying to join the family business rather than pursuing his dream of becoming a film director. But soon the two begin to email each other and rekindle their relationship despite the distance and obstacles between them. Marking the very first time in television history that a drama has been co-produced between Japan and South Korea, the story shows us that love has no borders.
Love comes in all flavors. Secret Ingredient is the story of a Korean man who gives up his entire luxurious life in Seoul in search of his childhood girlfriend, someone he’s never forgotten all these years, in the hopes that she would fall in love with him, not for who they were back then or who they are now, but for what they can aspire to be: happy, fulfilled and blissfully in love with one another.
When his boss, Dae Jung, goes missing in a ship accident, the company sends Woo Joo to Osaka to finish his business. On his last day in the city, Woo Joo chases someone looking exactly like Dae Jung to Taisho, an area in Osaka. He ends up losing him, but the sound of a guitar draws Woo Joo to a small bar, Pier 34. Its owner, Snow, somehow reminds him of Dae Jung, and listening to his music brings back memories. After passing out right there, Woo Joo ends up missing his flight back to Korea. He quits his job on a whim and soon meets Haruna, who is learning how to play the guitar from Snow. Woo Joo decides to stay at Pier 34 until he finds Dae Jung and so begins an unlikely vacation for him.
